Nathan Giorgetti and Lucine Musaelian [Benjamin Ealovega]

PRECARIOUSLY surviving on a pared-down budget while too much of Britain’s public funding for opera flows into the gilded coffers of Covent Garden, English National Opera doesn’t deliver new productions as often as it did.

But it’s just staged the London premiere of the cross-genre Angel’s Bone: a raw piece musically/dramatically (about the sexual exploitation of a pair of angels!) though well performed with all too visceral an impact. And from Oct 30-Dec 11 ENO has a new Tosca – staged by the company’s artistic director Annilese Miskimmon as a story of what happens when artists get swept into the torrent of politics.

With a cast that includes Christopher Purves as that greatest of all operatic villains Scarpia – I’m looking forward to his sneers – it’s a must-see. eno.org

• Meanwhile, Covent Garden is reviving a past production of Carmen done in drab modern-dress by Damiano Michieletto. It was saved before by Aigul Akhmetshina in the title role. But she’s no longer there, and the replacement cast looks B-list. Oct 29-Nov 21. rbo.org.uk

• One of this country’s leading living composers is Mark Simpson, a wunderkind who has now reached the age of 38 with an output of high-profile if sometimes provocative works behind him (it was Simpson who wrote an opera that cast Lesley Garrett as a lavatory attendant in a gay club).

This week he’s on a roll in London, with the premiere of his new piano concerto at the Royal Festival Hall, Oct 23 (southbankcentre.co.uk); a commissioned choral work in the Ora Singers’ 10th anniversary concert at Wigmore Hall, Oct 24 (wigmore-hall.org.uk); and the UK premiere of a piece for wind ensemble, also at Wigmore Hall, Oct 26. Make it to all three and get a close-to-comprehensive take on his distinctive soundworld.

• It’s the time of year when guitar enthusiasts crowd Kings Place for its niche but notable London Guitar Festival. Running Oct 23-25, it features names like Xuefei Yang (who as a Chinese female player demonstrates the reach of classical guitar these days), emerging artists, and new music by composers like Freya Waley-Cohen. kingsplace.co.uk

• Another autumn fixture is the London Festival of Baroque Music, running Oct 24-30 at Smith Square. Starting with Bach orchestral suites from Concerto Copenhagen, it also brings robust Purcellian dance numbers from the folksy Curious Bards (Oct 27), love music from the court of Charles II played by the magnificently named violinist Theotime Langlois de Swarte (Oct 28), and ends with a grand Bach B Minor Mass from La Nuova Musica (Oct 31). sinfoniasmithsq.org.uk

• Mozart never completed his C Minor Mass, but it’s such a towering piece it’s usually called his “Great” Mass and merits the scale of Westminster Cathedral where it’s done in concert, Oct 29, by the Bach Choir with soloists including Elizabeth Watts. thebachchoir.org.uk

• Talking of big-time female singers, Sarah Connolly is at Wigmore Hall, Oct 27, with a programme of Brahms, Debussy, Korngold. wigmore-hall.org.uk

And the same venue hosts violinist Midori, playing Schumann on Oct 24 – though she’s so big-time it’s returns only.

• It was in the 17th century that Armenian monks settled on the Venetian island of San Lazzaro; and their music is recalled by singing viol-players Lucine Musaelian and Nathan Giorgetti in Highgate’s Salon Music series, Oct 27. A promise of quiet enchantment. salonmusic.co.uk